LOS ANGELES — In the aftermath of Monday night’s extra-inning loss to the Phillies, Max Muncy struck the balance between pride and frustration that defined a game with October juice. The Dodgers traded blows with one of the NL’s best, rallied multiple times, and still watched the final chance slip away. As Muncy put it, “Yeah. Um, you know, we we fought good. Uh, unfortunately, we didn’t come out on top, but, you know, we didn’t give up, and I feel like that was a big thing for us. Um, we got out to a lead, they fought back, and then we were able to keep going back into it.”
A key early storyline was the approach against Ranger Suárez, who has carved up opponents all year. Muncy tipped his cap to the lefty while also crediting L.A.’s plan. “Yeah, it was, you know, we did good off him. Um, he’s a guy that’s given us a lot of fits in the past and, uh, you know, I thought we had a lot of really good at bats and, you know, at the end of the day, he’s still one of the best command pitchers out there and he does a really good job of mixing stuff and, um, you know, I thought we did good getting good at bats off him.” Those disciplined innings built the foundation for the Dodgers’ leads and ties throughout the night.
The bullpen became the flashpoint, as it often does in tight, high-wire games. Muncy refused to throw teammates under the bus, pointing instead to elite hitters doing elite things against quality pitches. “I mean, it’s a tough question. Um, you know, when you look tonight, the the home runs that were given up, Schwabber hit one with one finger on the bat, basically. Harper hit one about seven inches above the zone. Um, you know, it’s really hard to criticize them for making those pitches and just really good hitters found a way to to hit them out. Uh it’s frustrating just from a team perspective, but you know it’s you know it’s they they’ve done a great job for us all year and they’re going to keep doing a great job.” It was a fair read of a cruel inning: sometimes even good execution gets beaten by better swings.
With talk already turning to a potential October rematch, Muncy cautioned against drawing big conclusions from a mid-September series. “Um personally I don’t necessarily think so. Um we’ve we’ve done that in the past where we’ve played teams right before we’ve seen them in the postseason and uh you know usually they do everything complete opposite. So there’s not, you know, right now you’re just trying to win a game. You’re not wor really worried about what’s ahead. You’re trying to win the game tonight.” The message: focus on tonight’s details, not tomorrow’s hypotheticals.
Individually, Muncy’s night featured his first homer since returning from the IL—a needed sign that his swing is rounding back into form. He kept the moment in perspective. “Yeah, it felt good. Um but unfortunately I had some other bats where I didn’t get the job done and uh you know, I’m going to go I’m going to go to bed tonight thinking more about those than the home run.” And on a late slip leaving the box, he downplayed any concern: “Yeah, I stepped on home plate trying to get out of the box and just slipped. It’s uh sometimes that happens.”
In a game decided by inches—hawkish stars turning tough pitches into souvenirs and a single sac fly separating celebration from regret—Muncy’s takeaway mirrors what the Dodgers will need down the stretch: keep fighting, keep stacking quality at-bats, and trust the bullpen that has carried them so often. Monday hurt. It also looked and felt like October.
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